High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Burnout among maternal healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa may have a negative effect on services provided and efforts to mitigate high maternal mortality rates. In Malawi, research on burnout is limited and no empirical research has been conducted specifically among maternal health...

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Autores principales: Thorsen, Viva Combs, Tharp, Andra L Teten, Meguid, Tarek
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21605379
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6955-10-9
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author Thorsen, Viva Combs
Tharp, Andra L Teten
Meguid, Tarek
author_facet Thorsen, Viva Combs
Tharp, Andra L Teten
Meguid, Tarek
author_sort Thorsen, Viva Combs
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Burnout among maternal healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa may have a negative effect on services provided and efforts to mitigate high maternal mortality rates. In Malawi, research on burnout is limited and no empirical research has been conducted specifically among maternal health staff. Therefore, the aims of the study were to examine the prevalence and degree of burnout reported by healthcare workers who provide antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal services in a district referral hospital in Malawi; and, to explore factors that may influence the level of burnout healthcare workers experience. METHODS: In the current cross-sectional study, levels of burnout among staff working in obstetrics and gynaecology at a referral hospital in Malawi were examined, in addition to individual and job characteristics that may be associated with burnout. RESULTS: In terms of the three dimensions of burnout, of the 101 participants, nearly three quarters (72%) reported emotional exhaustion, over one third (43%) reported depersonalization while almost three quarters (74%) experienced reduced personal accomplishment. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these findings, burnout appears to be common among participating maternal health staff and they experienced more burnout than their colleagues working in other medical settings and countries. Further research is needed to identify factors specific to Malawi that contribute to burnout in order to inform the development of prevention and treatment within the maternal health setting.
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spelling pubmed-31140022011-06-14 High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study Thorsen, Viva Combs Tharp, Andra L Teten Meguid, Tarek BMC Nurs Research Article BACKGROUND: Burnout among maternal healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa may have a negative effect on services provided and efforts to mitigate high maternal mortality rates. In Malawi, research on burnout is limited and no empirical research has been conducted specifically among maternal health staff. Therefore, the aims of the study were to examine the prevalence and degree of burnout reported by healthcare workers who provide antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal services in a district referral hospital in Malawi; and, to explore factors that may influence the level of burnout healthcare workers experience. METHODS: In the current cross-sectional study, levels of burnout among staff working in obstetrics and gynaecology at a referral hospital in Malawi were examined, in addition to individual and job characteristics that may be associated with burnout. RESULTS: In terms of the three dimensions of burnout, of the 101 participants, nearly three quarters (72%) reported emotional exhaustion, over one third (43%) reported depersonalization while almost three quarters (74%) experienced reduced personal accomplishment. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these findings, burnout appears to be common among participating maternal health staff and they experienced more burnout than their colleagues working in other medical settings and countries. Further research is needed to identify factors specific to Malawi that contribute to burnout in order to inform the development of prevention and treatment within the maternal health setting. BioMed Central 2011-05-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3114002/ /pubmed/21605379 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6955-10-9 Text en Copyright ©2011 Thorsen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Thorsen, Viva Combs
Tharp, Andra L Teten
Meguid, Tarek
High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study
title High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study
title_full High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study
title_fullStr High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study
title_short High rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in Malawi: A cross-sectional study
title_sort high rates of burnout among maternal health staff at a referral hospital in malawi: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114002/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21605379
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6955-10-9
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